Movable barriers of various kinds are known in the art, including but not limited to horizontally and vertically sliding barriers, vertically and horizontally pivoting barriers, single-piece barriers, multi-piece or segmented barriers, partial barriers, complete barriers, rolling shutters, and various combinations and permutations of the above. Such barriers are typically used to control physical and/or visual access to or via an entryway (or exit) such as, for example, a doorway to a building or an entry point for a garage.
In many cases, a motor or other motion-imparting mechanism is utilized to effect selective movement of such a movable barrier. A movable barrier operator will then usually be utilized to permit control of the motion-imparting mechanism. In some cases a user may control the movable barrier operator by indicating a selection via one or more control surfaces that are physically associated with the movable barrier operator. In other cases such control can be effected by the transmission of a wireless remote control signal to the movable barrier operator.
Over time, the capabilities of and features supported by such movable barrier operators has expanded to include actions other than merely opening and closing a corresponding movable barrier. Some movable barrier operators provide ambient lighting. Some movable barrier operators can sense the likely presence of an obstacle in the path of the movable barrier and take an appropriate corresponding action. And some movable barriers have a plurality of operating modes to facilitate differing control strategies (for example, many movable barrier operators have a so-called vacation mode that prompts use of a differing set of operational states when the user leaves the movable barrier operator for an extended period of time or a learning mode that places the movable barrier operator into a programmable state to permit manual and/or automatic setting or selection of one or more operational parameters such as a maximum force setting).
Installation settings and needs can vary considerably from one place to another. Notwithstanding this truism, movable barrier operator manufacturers prefer to seek the economies of scale that attend the manufacture and distribution of movable barrier operator platforms that will provide satisfactory service in a wide variety of settings. As a result, some movable barrier operators are manufactured with the ability to support a wide range of functionality. Unfortunately, this often means that a physical interface must be provided to support numerous potentially utilized peripheral devices (including but not limited to sensors, control surfaces, alarms, displays, ambient and/or spot lighting, and so forth). This physical interface can represent undesired additional cost when part of the interface goes unused in a given installation.
Furthermore, even when a given installation includes use of all potentially supported peripherals, the physical installation itself will often necessarily include a physical signaling path to couple the movable barrier operator to the various peripherals. This in turn can result in undesired exposed wiring and/or an undesired increase of installation time.
It is also likely in some installation settings that the physical interface of a given movable barrier operator, regardless of how well conceived in the first instance, may nevertheless fail to permit compatible support of a given peripheral. For example, a given user may wish to provide a quantity of individual lighting platforms that exceeds the number of lights that are supported by the physical interface for a given movable barrier operator. As another example, another given user may wish to support a relatively new function, such as an alarm that sounds when a possibly unauthorized individual enters an opened entryway, that is not specifically supported by a given movable barrier operator.
For these and other reasons, prior art movable barrier operators are often partially or wholly inadequate to suit the present and/or developing needs of a given application.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are typically not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention.